Wednesday, April 25, 2007
18 April, 07
Oh my G-d, death warmed up. We have woken up so early and I am feeling so ill. Every muscle aches and somehow I have to get ready so that we will be on time for our pick-up to the ferry station. I got it all out (if you know what I mean) before we left and so we got to the ferry and I was so worried about it. Every time I think that there are no more boats, we have to do another one. It all went well and because we were on the Amazon River it was pretty smooth the whole way and the weather was good to. At that time of the morning the water was in fact like a lake and the sun was rising- it was gorgeous. We slept for three hours and arrived in a port called Camara on the island of Marajo from where a van picked us up and we drove another 35 minutes to a town called Salvaterra. Isla Marajo is 50 000 km squared and it is an archipelago of fluvial beaches, swamps, lagoons, forests and green fields. Its landscape changes drastically depending on the time of year and funnily enough the buffalo population exceeds the human populace. The story goes as follows: a ship on the way to India sailing towards French Guiana in about 1920 sunk and the legend is that the buffalo are descended from the animals that swam ashore. The island has many snakes, many fish (including stingrays) and many beautiful birds including the graceful Scarlet Ibis (Guara). We arrived at Pousada dos Guaras and I collapsed in the hammock outside the room whilst Rich ‘doby-wallahed’ (washed –for those of you who didn’t read the India section) the clothes yet again. We lay by the pool and relaxed until we had to meet at reception for our tour. The grounds were very pretty and everything was very natural. There were horses and buffalo in the gardens roaming around and the pousada had such a nice feel to it. There was a French couple (Chloe and Gium), a Brazilian girl (Luciana), an Argentine girl (Celina) and a miserable old couple on our tour and we started in the town of Joanes. We saw the remnants of the first Jesuit church that was set up in the 17th century by the first Portugese who colonized this area. This was at the Bay of Para on the Paracauari River, not the Amazon River, and this was pretty much the whole village. We then drove to the centre of Salvaterra (the village that we are staying in). A pathetic museum and a few shops lined the street with the pharmacy, butcher and a few mercados. It was very simple and quiet and ‘chilled-out’. A few people bought some buffalo cheese- apparently it is delicious. But, having this bug/diarrhea I cannot have the pleasure of trying it. We got back to the pousada and met the group for dinner – they are all lovely people and we had a bit of Portugese, French, Spanish and English going. The bug is still lurking…
Oh my G-d, death warmed up. We have woken up so early and I am feeling so ill. Every muscle aches and somehow I have to get ready so that we will be on time for our pick-up to the ferry station. I got it all out (if you know what I mean) before we left and so we got to the ferry and I was so worried about it. Every time I think that there are no more boats, we have to do another one. It all went well and because we were on the Amazon River it was pretty smooth the whole way and the weather was good to. At that time of the morning the water was in fact like a lake and the sun was rising- it was gorgeous. We slept for three hours and arrived in a port called Camara on the island of Marajo from where a van picked us up and we drove another 35 minutes to a town called Salvaterra. Isla Marajo is 50 000 km squared and it is an archipelago of fluvial beaches, swamps, lagoons, forests and green fields. Its landscape changes drastically depending on the time of year and funnily enough the buffalo population exceeds the human populace. The story goes as follows: a ship on the way to India sailing towards French Guiana in about 1920 sunk and the legend is that the buffalo are descended from the animals that swam ashore. The island has many snakes, many fish (including stingrays) and many beautiful birds including the graceful Scarlet Ibis (Guara). We arrived at Pousada dos Guaras and I collapsed in the hammock outside the room whilst Rich ‘doby-wallahed’ (washed –for those of you who didn’t read the India section) the clothes yet again. We lay by the pool and relaxed until we had to meet at reception for our tour. The grounds were very pretty and everything was very natural. There were horses and buffalo in the gardens roaming around and the pousada had such a nice feel to it. There was a French couple (Chloe and Gium), a Brazilian girl (Luciana), an Argentine girl (Celina) and a miserable old couple on our tour and we started in the town of Joanes. We saw the remnants of the first Jesuit church that was set up in the 17th century by the first Portugese who colonized this area. This was at the Bay of Para on the Paracauari River, not the Amazon River, and this was pretty much the whole village. We then drove to the centre of Salvaterra (the village that we are staying in). A pathetic museum and a few shops lined the street with the pharmacy, butcher and a few mercados. It was very simple and quiet and ‘chilled-out’. A few people bought some buffalo cheese- apparently it is delicious. But, having this bug/diarrhea I cannot have the pleasure of trying it. We got back to the pousada and met the group for dinner – they are all lovely people and we had a bit of Portugese, French, Spanish and English going. The bug is still lurking…
# posted by Heidi & Richard's travels @ 4:12 PM 
